US President Barack Obama said that the new Egyptian regime is neither "an
ally nor an enemy", in a television interview with a Spanish-language
channel on Wednesday.

8:26AM BST 14 Sep 2012

"I don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy," Mr Obama said in an interview with Telemundo, a Spanish-language network in North America, after mobs of demonstrators angry over a film they consider blasphemous to Islam assaulted the USEmbassy in Cairo.

He went on to say the newly formed Egyptian government, which was democratically elected, is still trying "to find its way."

If the country's new administration take actions showing "they're not taking responsibility," then it would "be a real big problem," the president said in the interview, which aired in full on Thursday.

The attack on the embassy in Cairo coincided with attacks on a US Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi that led to the killing of four diplomats, including the US ambassador.

Mr Obama's comments reflected American wariness over Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi – who took office in June after the country's first free elections – in the aftermath of the Cairo embassy assault.

The US was a close ally of Egypt under ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak and the $1.3 billion still given to the country in military aid reflects the importance of the North African state in the tensions in the Middle East.

On Thursday, the White House said Mr Obama had spoken with the presidents of Egypt and Libya to discuss the violence against American diplomatic bases.

The US President, in his call to Mr Morsi, said Egypt "must cooperate with the United States in securing US diplomatic facilities and personnel," the White House said.